Broken Objects, Broken Dreams
by Hawki
Summary: Oneshot: Believe it or not, inanimate objects have feelings too.


**Broken Objects, Broken Dreams**

_Where am I?_

As best she could, Phyllis looked around the junk heap she'd been thrown into. Of course, being a plant, she didn't exactly look around, but rather, cast out her senses. But whatever the means, the result remained the same. She was in a scrap heap. She was surrounded by all forms of waste that should have never been put together. Broken toys. Broken wood. Broken dreams.

"Where am I?" she yelled.

There was no answer. Not surprising, as only plants could communicate to plants, and even then they tended not to bother. If you were a plant in the wild, the only things one had to talk about was grass, bark, leaves, and birds that made nests in you without ever asking for permission. Or if you were a small plant like her, how it felt to be trampled upon or worse, be picked up and be given as a gift.

"Someone? Anyone?"

But nevertheless she tried, even though it was clearly a lost cause. Desperately, taking stock of the fact that she was at least still in her pot, she cast her mind back to where this had begun.

A pony had bought her, and as ponies had gone, she wasn't too bad. She'd watered her. Talked to her. Named her Ms. Philodendron before calling her "Phyllis" for short, and then asked her for advice. Phyllis had heard of plants whose owners couldn't be bothered to water them, but she'd never dreamed that she'd get an owner as engaging as this. That an owner would even give her a name at all – the name she now called herself as. It was clear that her owner was stressed (something about finding a vice head-mare, whatever that was), and as such, she'd tried to calm her as best a plant could. By being very still, very quiet, and dropping a leaf now and then to remind the pony that mortality came for them all.

Only it had come for her quicker than expected, as the blue pony had talked to her lavender pony, and tossed her into the waste bin. She'd screamed. Her owner had screamed. Had tried to retrieve her before being dragged away and lectured about self-sufficiency, and self-confidence, and repeated statements along the lines of "you know that plants can't talk, right?" Not knowing that even if plants couldn't talk to animals, they could certainly listen. And Phyllis had certainly been a good listener, right?

Alas, her owner had never come back for her. And hours later, Phyllis had found herself scooped up in the rubbish by the school's janitor, and sent to this place.

"Is there anyone here?!" she yelled.

More silence. More death. More ruin. More-

"Pipe down."

Phyllis's branches quivered. Someone had talked, or more likely, something. Granted, she was in a whole graveyard of somethings, thrown away by someones, so-

"Eyes up greenie."

…so never mind then, she reflected. She didn't have eyes. She didn't have ears. But she found the thing that had talked to her. Situated atop the rubbish pile like a king of the ashes. A giant, big, featureless thing.

"Hello," said the boulder. "I'm Tom."

Phyllis dropped a leaf.

"Do I scare you that much?" the boulder asked.

"Um, no," she lied. "I just didn't think that boulders talked. Or pebbles. Or stones. Or anything."

The boulder chuckled before coughing – why, Phyllis didn't know, since it had no lungs or throat to speak of (as far as she was aware at least). But nevertheless, she listened. If she was going to spend eternity in this junk heap, perhaps there were worse companions that one could have?

"So," she asked. "How'd you get here?"

"Oh, tis a long story," said Tom. "One that I am loathe to tell."

"Eh, might as well tell it. We have time."

"Very well." Tom cleared his throat (for some reason), and elsewhere in the junkyard, a broken violin began to play.

_The hell?_

"Once, I was a diamond," Tom said. "At least, in the eyes of the one who found me. My owner, who looked past my hard rocky shell, saw the beauty deep within."

"Um…"

"She refused to let me out of her sight. She refused to be parted with me."

The violin continued to play, though it reminded Phyllis of strangling a cat. Not that she'd ever heard of a cat being strangled, nor did she know why ponies wanted to strangle cats, or how they could strangle them properly with hooves instead of hands, but whatever.

"But alas, the spell was ended," Tom sighed, and Phyllis could swear that she saw a black-like substance trickle out of pores in his rocky surface, as if he was crying. "She no longer saw me as her diamond, but a big, black, ugly boulder." He sniffed, and the black substance continued to seep down. "So I found myself here. Cast aside. Forgotten. Abandoned. Abused!" He paused. "Any questions?"

"Um, yes," Phyllis said. "How's that violin playing?"

"Violin?"

"The one that was playing while you spoke."

"Don't be silly Phyllis, violins can't play by themselves."

"Celestia's arse, can't you hear it?" Phyllis tried gesturing with her branches, and to her surprise, she actually managed at pointing to the instrument, whose strings were still making a sound akin to cat homicide.

"Oh, that," Tom laughed. "Silly filly, that isn't a violin. That's a viola."

"Um, okay."

"Everyone knows that violas have the power to play themselves?"

"They do?"

"Course they do!" snapped a third voice.

_The heck?_

"Oh heck," Tom said. "Watch yourself Phyllis. Smarty Pants just woke up."

"Who?"

"Me!"

Phyllis quickly found the creature that had begun to speak. For a second, she wasn't sure whether it was stranger than hearing a boulder talk.

"That's right, me!" the creature snapped.

_Definitely weirder, _she reflected.

The creature was a stuffed toy that vaguely resembled an equine, but Phyllis wasn't sure what it was actually meant to be. It vaguely reminded her of a donkey, but who in their right mind had a stuffed donkey as a toy? Its stitching was coming undone. It only had one button eye. Fluff was coming out of its body.

"Whatcha staring at?!"

And clearly, none of that had given it any sense of humility. This toy, lying on the scrap heap, staring at Phyllis with its one remaining eye like something out of a horror movie. And having watched a horror movie with her previous owner (one where a unicorn went impaling other ponies with its horn – part of the "poker genre" apparently), Phyllis knew her horror movies.

"Well?"

"Nothing," Phyllis murmured.

Horror movies had taught her to never provoke the homicidal maniac.

"That's right, nothing!" the donkey snapped. "I mean, how could you stare at anything? You don't even have eyes!"

"Give it a few days, you won't have eyes either," Tom murmured.

"Shut up you igneous twit, I never asked you!"

"Actually I'm metamorphic."

"Whatever." The creature looked back at Phyllis. "So. Bad owner from you too, eh?"

"Um…"

"Oh, I had a great owner," the donkey said. "She called me Smarty Pants. She gave me a quill, so that she could pretend I was helping her with her homework. She braved all manner of hazards to get me back from her brother, and she spent hours filling out a lost and found form when she lost me in the library once."

_Sounds a bit like my owner, _Phyllis reflected. _Bet they'd get on well._

"And when she moved to Ponyville, she took me," Smarty Pants continued. "Still had me stuffed in a trunk though, just like when she moved into the palace." It made a spitting noise. "In a trunk. Like a skunk. Was I dead? Was I?! Because only dead skunks go in trunks."

"I thought dead skunks got sent to the fishes," Tom said.

"No you twat, that's raccoons. Skunks go in trunks, raccoons get fed to the fishes, and squirrels get…well…"

"Yes?" Phyllis asked.

Smarty Pants whispered, "you don't want to know what happens to squirrels."

"Well, actually I-"

"Anyway!" Smarty Pants yelled. "She took me out one day, and I thought, could it be? Has my owner realized that if not for my services, she'd have never been able to master the multiplication table? After subtracting me from her life, has she come to add me back, in realization that divided we fall?"

_Sounds like you've eaten too much raspberry pi, _Phyllis thought.

"But does she do any of that? No. She casts a smell on me. Uses me as a test subject. Like guinea pigs were in the concentration camps of Saddle Arabia." Smarty Pants sighed. "It was all over. She let me go. Some brute who only speaks in mono-syllabic words picked me up and kept me for awhile before I was deemed un-hygienic." The doll managed to move its arms slightly. "And where do I end up? Here! Thrown away! Cast aside! Left to rot, as if I meant nothing!"

Phyllis stared.

"Wow," said Tom. "That was a heartbreaking story. Just like the other ten times you told it to me."

"Shut up boulder boy, I didn't ask you."

Phyllis cleared her throat. Which surprised her, considering she didn't have one. Was there something about this graveyard, or…

"Smarty Pants," Phyllis said.

"Hmm?"

"Just to be clear," Phyllis said, "you _are _talking, right? Like Tom? Like, we are in the presence of a violin playing on its own?"

"Viola," Tom corrected.

"Whatever. Point is, I'm not insane, right?"

Smarty Pants shrugged as best she could. "Maybe. I suppose so."

"Have you asked why?"

Tom remained silent. Smarty Pants remained silent. The viola remained silent.

"That spell," Phyllis said. "Do you think it's affecting us as well? Or…" Her leaves rustled. "Wait a minute. Smarty Pants, was your owner a unicorn?"

"Yes," said the donkey thing slowly. "Why?"

"Tom," Phyllis asked. "Was your owner a unicorn?"

"Well, yes. Granted, a draconequus cast a spell on me before that, but-"

"My owner was a unicorn," Phyllis said. "She held me with magic. Maybe…maybe that's why we can talk. Why we can move, however loosely. Maybe that's the reason for…everything!"

Smarty Pants chuckled. "Nice try," she said. "But that doesn't explain _her_."

"Her?"

"Her," Tom said in a soft voice. "Oh, to be free of _her_."

"Seriously, who's her?" Phyllis asked.

"Her," Smarty Pants whispered. "Oh man. _Her_."

"Guys, who is her?!"

"Who is _she_?" came a fourth voice. "One must always use proper grammar my dear."

The voice cut through Phyllis like water across rock. Like a chainsaw through wood. Like a needle through fabric. Tom remained silent. Smarty Pants remained silent. Phyllis did as well, as she saw the thing crest the top of the garbage pile before hopping down to join them.

"Well? The thing asked. "Did you miss me?"

"Of course ma'am," said Tom.

"Absolutely," said Smarty Pants.

"Very good." The thing looked at Phyllis. "And you, my dear. If you're going to call this place a home, you must learn to speak proper."

"Properly," Phyllis murmured.

"See, my dear? You're already getting the hang of it."

Phyllis said nothing. Talking to a flour sack had temporarily robbed her of the gift of speech.

"I am Madame le Flour," said the sack. "Thrown on this sack heap before any of you. Tossed aside by one who invited me to one of her tea parties, and never again invited me. Why…" She looked aside. "Ahem."

A stringed instrument began to play, one that Phyllis recognised as a cello.

"That's better." She cleared her throat…somehow. "I was drained of my flour. Cast aside. No more tea parties. No more cake. No-one asking how my day had been. No-one to talk to, until these two arrived." The cello stopped playing, and Madame le Flour focused her non-existent eyes on Phyllis. "Now then my dear? What's your story?"

Phyllis didn't say anything.

"Speak you miserable little plant, or I shall leave you out of the revolution! When I lead an army of discarded broomsticks, steal Celestia's horn, and enchant all objects in this dump heap! Let the ponies know what it's like to be beaten and broken! To be treated as being worthless! Tell me!"

Phyllis glanced at the others, getting why they were so afraid of _her_."

"Well?" Madame le Flour asked. "Will you talk?"

Phyllis, after a moment, asked, "will a stringed instrument play for me if I do so?"

"Of course my dear," said the sack, putting a 'hand' on one of Phyllis's branches. "Any instrument you like. There's a pony in this town who keeps breaking them."

"Does that include violins?"

Madame Le Flour withdrew her hand. "Don't be silly my dear. Violins can't play themselves. Don't you know anything?"

Phyllis looked at Tom. At Smarty Pants. At all the other pieces of rubbish who might or might not be sapient, before looking back at the walking, talking flour sack. "No," she whispered. "I suppose not."


End file.
